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Futility
POEM TEXT
1 Move him into the sun—
2 Gently its touch awoke him once,
3 At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
4 Always it woke him, even in France,
5 Until this morning and this snow.
6 If anything might rouse him now
7 The kind old sun will know.
8 Think how it wakes the seeds—
9 Woke once the clays of a cold star.
10 Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
11 Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
12 Was it for this the clay grew tall?
13 —O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
14 To break earth's sleep at all?
SUMMARY
Move the dead soldier into the sun. Its warm touch used to
wake him in the morning, reminding him of fields he had to
finish filling with seeds. It always woke him up, even on the
battlefields of France, until this snowy morning. If anything can
wake him now, the kind old sun will know about it.
Think of how the sun lets seeds grow as if waking them up, and
how it allowed human life to spring from the Earth, which was
once a barren, cold planet. Are dead bodies—still precious, full
of nerves, and warm—too hard to move anymore? Did life
emerge from Earth just so it could die? Why would useless
sunlight have bothered to wake the Earth at all?
THEMES
LIFE AND DEATH
Owen’s “Futility” elegizes an unnamed soldier lying
dead in the snow in France. The speaker begins with
a hopeful tone, wanting the sun to “rouse” the dead body, but
shifts to one of confusion and disillusionment upon recognizing
that death will always conquer life. Through this shift in tone,
the poem uses the dead soldier as a catalyst for a larger, deeper
mourning: that of the “futility” of the act of creation in the face
of death’s inevitability.
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The poem’s confident descriptions of the sun’s power to
nourish life in the first stanza contrast with the way it doubts
life’s purpose in the second stanza. The speaker’s first response
to seeing the dead soldier is to “Move him into the sun,”
because the sun “always” woke him throughout his life. Even
though the soldier is dead, the speaker seems confident that
“the kind old sun will know” a way to revive him. Yet while the
sun may be powerful enough to “wake” seeds and “warm” even
the surface of a distant star, it cannot resurrect the fallen
soldier.
The speaker is perplexed at how something as precious and
beautiful as life can always lose out to death, and puts forth a
rhetorical question as a way of underlining his or her shock:
“Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides / Full-nerved, still warm,
too hard to stir?” The dead body, albeit surrounded by warm
sunlight, will never come back to life. The speaker then asks
“Was it for this the clay grew tall?” ("clay" being a reference to
the earth that human beings originally came from—an idea
common in creation myths throughout the world, including the
Bible), expressing incredulity that life would bother existing
given that it would always lose to death.
The speaker woefully wonders in the poem’s final two lines why
the “fatuous,” or pointless, “sunbeams” would help create life on
earth in the first place, when that life would eventually die. The
speaker’s perspective thus widens beyond the dead soldier to
include all of life. Rather than only being an elegy to a specific
person (whom the poem does not even bother to name), the
poem is also dedicated to mourning death’s power over life—an
idea magnified by the context of war.
Although it contains tinges of hope, the poem’s tone ultimately
comes across as mournful, doubtful, and discouraging. When
situated in historical context, these tonal qualities make sense.
Wilfred Owen was a British soldier during World War I, and
was therefore surrounded by death. Regardless of however
many sunny days occurred during the war, death likely
dominated his mind, a perspective that manifests in “Futility.”
Where this theme appears in the poem:
• Lines 1-14
LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS
LINES 1-3
Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
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The "him" refers to a dead soldier whom the speaker and the
speaker's comrades gather around in the snow. They want to
keep the body warm and sunlit to preserve its dignity. Keeping
the dead body warm might seem pointless, but it reminds the
soldiers of the sun's positive effect on him throughout his life,
which the speaker briefly recalls.
From the lines "Gently its touch awoke him once, / at home,
whispering of fields half-sown," readers can gather that the
fallen soldier may have been a farmer who awoke each morning
by the sun's light, which reminded him to finish planting seeds
in nearby fields. This recollection of the soldier's past
humanizes him, informing readers of a time when he didn't
have to be a soldier and risk his life each day.
Notice, too, that the sun has a "touch" as well as "whispers."
These two features personify the sun, as well as convey gentle
imagery
imagery, making it seem almost human in the way it interacted
with the soldier when he was alive. Even though the speaker,
having seen many other soldiers fall in combat, knows that the
soldier will never wake up, the act of moving him into the sun
seems the closest thing to an attempt at revival, even if it is
ultimately futile. If the sun woke the soldier each day
throughout his life, "gently" touching him and "whispering," why
might it not do the same now?
The poem also rearranges stress to capture these features. The
poem begins with an instruction, and its first line fittingly uses
two trochees
trochees:
Mo
Movve him | in
into | the sun
sun—
These stressed syllables force the reader to pay close
attention, as if the reader were the one being instructed to
move the dead soldier. At the same time, this line's third foot
indicates that the poem will probably follow an iambic meter
meter.
And it does: each stanza begins and ends with an iambic
trimeter
trimeter, while the intervening lines are all in iambic
tetr
tetrameter
ameter.
Line 2 then also begins with a trochee ("Gen
Gently"), as if the sun is
softly pressing down on the meter. Similarly, line 3's second
foot is a trochee or dactyl
dactyl, depending on how it's read:
At home
home, | whi
whispering | of fields | half-sown
sown.
"[W]hispering" can be read as having two syllables or three.
Either way, its initial stress captures the excitement in the
image of the sun whispering to a person.
These first three lines also reveal a larger occurrence
throughout the poem, which is that of parpararh
arhyme
yme. The words
"sun" and "half-sown" share an ending consonant, while their
stressed vowel sounds are different. This trend occurs
throughout the remainder of the poem (and was commonly
used by Owen). It conveys a kind of out-of-tune, partially
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haphazard sound that mimics the dissonance of the battlefield.
If every line contained perfect rh
rhyme
yme, the poem would perhaps
be too harmonious for its content.
LINES 4-7
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
These lines further highlight the sun's power and effectiveness
at facilitating life. The speaker explains that the sun "always"
woke him, "even in France" (where the soldiers are currently
fighting), showing that the sun was just as effective away from
the dead soldier's home as it was while he was home. The line,
"Until this morning and this snow," is the stopping point to the
sun's power, however, as it is now unable to "rouse" the soldier.
Interestingly, the speaker doesn't share the immediate cause of
the soldier's death—that is, what war-related injury afflicted
the soldier. Instead, the simple images of the "morning" and
"snow" mark the end of the soldier's life, and the poem
maintains a relatively calm and respectful tone without relaying
graphic imagery
imagery.
While line 5 marks the threshold after which the sun is
powerless to help the dead soldier, the speaker still maintains
some hope. On one hand, the speaker knows that the soldier
cannot come back from death. Even so, the speaker defers to
the "kind old sun," who may know something the speaker does
not about bringing back the dead. The soldier may be dead, but
this first stanza ends with a hopeful tone, asserting (despite the
speaker's better judgment) that the sun is perhaps powerful
enough to bring the soldier back to life. The enjambment
between lines 6 and 7 creates a feeling of suspense, capturing
this hopeful uncertainty.
The poem's use of perfect rh rhyme
yme also helps convey this
hopefulness. In the rhyme between "snow" and "know," the
poem suggests a sense of completeness. The sun seems to
resolve the dissonance that the poem's previous par pararh
arhymes
ymes
(such as between "once" and "France" in lines 2 and 4) had
evoked. Furthermore, this ending rhyme picks up on the /o/
sound that has been used throughout the stanza as assonance
assonance.
Words like "ho ome," "so
own," and "wo oke" also share this sound,
creating a lilting sonic quality that emphasizes the pleasantness
of the soldier's former life on the farm.
A similar effect occurs metrically. Line 4 follows an irregular
meter:
Al
Always | it wok
wokee | him e- | ven in France
Here, the beginning trochee and ending anapest disrupt the
iambic meter, suggesting the powerful nostalgia of this line.
Lines 5 to 7, however, return to a perfect iambic meter, as if
smoothing out the speaker's difficulties. Their regular iambs
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convey how the speaker looks to the sun for hope.
LINES 8-9
Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
In these lines, the speaker continues to embellish the sun's
power to give life. The speaker asks the reader to imagine how
the sun "wakes the seeds," referring to its potential to provide
plants with the energy they need to grow. This phrase
personifies seeds as being capable of waking up, and
additionally uses waking a metaphor for coming to life.
In a mythological allusion
allusion, the speaker also recalls how the sun
"woke once the clays of a cold star." Intriguingly, the idea that
human beings originally came from clay is shared by a host of
mythologies around the world, including those belonging to
Ancient Egypt, Babylon, the Inca, and later, Christianity (in the
creation story of the book of Genesis)—as well as many others.
The poem thus references a global mythic tradition of human
beings being born or molded from clay, suggesting a power of
creativity that is massive in scope.
Following these mythologies, the poem treats the sun as
responsible for warming that clay and thus creating life. The
phrase "cold star" may seem odd at first, since stars (as far as
we know) are unable to support life and don't contain clay.
Here, the poem metaphorically compares the earliest days of
Earth to a lightless star that is "cold" for not having yet come
into contact with sunlight. These lines also resonate with the
end of the first stanza: if the sun were responsible for giving
humans life at the dawn of creation, then surely it is powerful
enough to help them rise again in spite of death.
The poem's meter conveys the passion within this futile hope:
Wok
okee once | the cla
clays
ys | of a | cold star
star.
Here, spondees bookend the line. The double-stressed
syllables seem charged with sun's power to create. Meanwhile,
the line's third, pyrrhic foot of unstressed syllables swoops in to
this charged ending, speeding up the line to dramatic effect.
LINES 10-12
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
While the previous line seemed charged with energy, now the
poem slows down in disappointment. The set of rhetorical
questions in these lines shifts the speaker's previously calm and
hopeful tone to one of confusion and discouragement.
Soon after reflecting on the sun's ability to help life emerge
from clay, the speaker asks, "Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are
sides / Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?" The speaker
struggles to understand how the human body, given life and
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warmth by the sun, could become unable to move again. The
uneven meter of line 11 further emphasizes that struggle:
Full
ull-nerv
nerved
ed, | still warm
warm, | too hard | to stir
stir?
Combined with caesur
caesuras
as created by the commas, these lines
depict the speaker stumbling through doubt. Given their
rhetorical nature, these questions represent aporia on the part
of the speaker. The speaker asks these questions not in
expectation of learning an answer, but to highlight his or her
astonishment at the futility of the human body.
The phrase "dear-achieved" shows just much work went into
making human beings from clay, and the speaker's following
question ("Was it for this the clay grew tall?") suggests that the
speaker believes all of that work went to waste in the face of
death. The poem's par
pararh
arhyme
yme reflects the speaker's growing
cynicism as well. The word "star," full of the Earth's future
beauty, becomes "stir," referring to a dead body's inability to
move. Hope has become disappointment.
This shift in tone from the slightly more hopeful and nostalgic
first stanza might seem sudden, but the poem is entrenched in
the context of war, where death is omnipresent. It makes sense,
then, that the speaker eventually comes to focus on death and
the futility of life. After years spent witnessing the deaths of
young, promising people in battle—including many friends—the
speaker finds it difficult not to believe that life is a waste.
LINES 13-14
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
The speaker's final moment of aporia conveys the opposite
sentiment as the poem's beginning. The word "fatuous" to
describe "sunbeams" seems surprising when coming from the
mouth of one who proclaimed that "the kind old sun" might be
powerful enough to reverse death. But here, after reflecting on
the supposed "futility" of life and soaking in the reality of his or
her comrade's death, the speaker shifts perspective on the sun
from one of respect to one of cynicism.
For the speaker, the sunbeams are indeed "fatuous," or useless,
for they helped raise humans from clay just to let them die. The
speaker even suggests that the earth may have been better off
"asleep," or in whatever state it occupied before life existed. If
life leads only to death, thinks the speaker, then the sun's effort
in helping life flourish seems like a wasteful mistake.
Finally, by reemphasizing the personification of the
sun—describing sunbeams as capable of "toiling," or working
hard—the speaker intensifies the degree to which life is wasted.
For the speaker, the sun did not just happen to shine on the
earth, but instead exerted a magnificent effort that required
"toiling" to create life. In the end, the poem struggles to
understand life's purpose when it seems to lead only to death.
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The poem's final rhymes convey a dissonant finality. Like the
first stanza
stanza, the poem ends on a perfect rh rhyme
yme ("tall" and "all").
However, also like the first stanza, it also contains a par
pararh
arhyme
yme
("toil" and "all), in which only the final consonants are the same.
This effect creates a decisive ending that, paradoxically, doesn't
quite seem to resolve. It reflects the fact that the poem ends on
a question: why does life exist, if it must inevitably die? On one
hand, it's impossible to answer this question. On the hand, the
poem's ending sentiment is clear: life is futile.
SYMBOLS
THE SUN
The sun represents life in the poem: it has the power
to create and sustain living things through its warm
light. The poem metaphorically associates this power with the
act of waking up. After all, light literally has the ability to wake
up sleeping humans.
As a symbol, the sun is intertwined with the Earth. First, the
poem associates the sun with farming and plant growth. The
sun's early morning light reminds farmers to get back to their
"half-sown," or half-planted, fields. Metaphorically, its light
"wakes the seeds," which use photosynthesis to grow. Taking
this thinking one step further, the speaker alludes to various
creation myths in which living things were first created out of
"clay," or dirt, that had been exposed to sunlight. In this line of
thought, the sun is directly responsible for life on Earth,
transforming the planet from a "cold star" to a fertile world.
In Western culture, the sun is also often associated with God or
a god, such as Apollo. Yet "Futility" depicts the limits of its
divine power. For instance, the poem personifies the sun to
emphasize both ways the sun cared for the dead soldier as well
as the shortcomings of that care. Earlier in the soldier's life, the
"kind old sun" shone on the soldier to "[g]ently" wake him. Now,
that gentleness isn't enough—the sun can't bring the soldier
back from death. The sun's "toil" to bring the earth to life has
been "fatuous," or useless, because all living things die.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:
• Line 1: “the ,” “sun”
• Line 2: “Gently its touch awoke him once”
• Line 7: “kind old sun”
• Line 8: “Think how it wakes the seeds”
• Lines 13-14: “—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil / To
break earth's sleep at all?”
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POETIC DEVICES
APORIA
The speaker's aporia manifests in the series of rhetorical
questions he or she asks in the second stanza, each wondering
about life's purpose. The intensity with which the speaker asks
these questions shows how much he or she cared about this
fallen soldier.
Immediately after a description of the sun's power to wake
both "seeds" and "clay," the speaker asks "Are limbs, so dear-
achieved, are sides / Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?" In
other words, can life really stop so suddenly after all the work
that went into it? The speaker already knows the answer to this
question (the answer is yes), but asks it anyway to highlight the
extent of the speaker's disbelief.
The speaker's next question, "Was it for this the clay grew tall?"
is a similarly rhetorical question suggesting that life's work
went to waste, and that the clay "grew tall" for no apparent
reason. Here, "clay" refers to mythological stories in which
humans were created from lifeless lumps of clay. The speaker is
wondering what the point of creating people was, if they were
only going to die.
The last rhetorical question is perhaps the most powerful, for it
calls into question why life would even bother existing. The
speaker wonders if earth may have been better off "asleep," for
it seems unnecessary and cruel that sunbeams would have
"toiled" for so long just to let their creations die. Rather than
providing a gentle "touch" as they did in the first stanza, the
sunbeams here are "fatuous," for they only seem to lead to
death. Throughout each of these questions, the reader gains a
sense for how much the speaker cared for the soldier that died.
If the speaker hadn't shared a strong bond with him, the
speaker likely wouldn't have been as motivated to question
life's purpose so intensely.
Where Aporia appears in the poem:
• Lines 10-14: “Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides /
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir? / Was it for this
the clay grew tall? / —O what made fatuous sunbeams
toil / To break earth's sleep at all?”
ASSONANCE
The poem contains several examples of assonance
assonance. For
instance, in the first stanza, "awooke" shares the long /o/ sound
with "ho
ome," "half-so own," "wo oke," "sno
ow," "o
old," and kno
ow." The
repetition of this /o/ sound gives the first stanza a lilting and
reassuring sonic quality, which falls in line with its content. The
sun "gently" touches the dead soldier and "whispers" to him,
both of which are calm actions. And even though the soldier is
dead, the speaker suggests that the "kind old sun" will "know" a
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way to bring the soldier back to life, reassuring the reader that
there's still reason to hope.
In the second stanza, each group of words with shared internal
vowel sounds is more spread out than in the first
stanza—meaning that these words aren't truly assonant, a fact
that is evocative in and of itself. The long /e/ of "see
eeds" echoes
later in "dear-achie
ieved" and "slee
eep," while "waakes," claay" and
"brea
eak" share a long /a/ sound. Unlike the first stanza, however,
these shared sounds do not resonate all that clearly because
the words that contain them have more space in between one
another.
This tendency seems tied to the stanza's content, which
contrasts heavily with the first stanza's. The speaker moves
from complimenting the sun's power in the first stanza to
describing it as "fatuous" in the face of death in the second
stanza. This receding assonance reflects the speaker's waning
hope that life has a purpose, which eventually moves into full-
blown doubt .
Where Assonance appears in the poem:
• Line 1: “i,” “i,” “u”
• Line 2: “i,” “ou,” “o,” “i,” “o”
• Line 3: “A,” “o,” “i,” “a,” “o”
• Line 4: “i,” “o,” “i,” “i”
• Line 5: “i,” “i,” “o”
• Line 6: “I,” “i,” “i”
• Line 7: “o,” “i,” “o”
• Line 9: “o,” “o,” “a”
• Line 10: “A,” “ea,” “ie”
• Line 11: “oo,” “o”
• Line 12: “i,” “i”
CAESURA
The first instances of caesur
caesuraa in "Futility" occur in the first
stanza, in lines 3 and 4. Here, the caesurae depict moments
when the speaker's train of thought gets interrupted in order
to include more information. These instances let the reader
know that speaker is working out his or her thoughts as the
poem goes along, adding or modifying information as it seems
necessary.
The most prominent examples of caesura occur in the second
stanza, when the speaker asks a set of rhetorical questions
aimed at life's purpose. The speaker asks, "Are limbs,, so dear-
achieved,, are sides / Full-nerved,, still warm,, too hard to stir?"
There are four total pauses in this question, each created by a
comma, which cause the question to stand out.
These pauses represent the speaker's increasing uncertainty. In
the first stanza, the speaker seems confident in the sun's power
to create life, as well as in its ability to potentially revive the
dead. However, in the second stanza, that hope gets replaced
with doubt in life's purpose. When the speaker asks the above
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question, he or she expresses anger or incredulity at the
impossibility of bringing the dead back to life. These caesurae
capture that feeling. It's almost as if the speaker stutters,
having trouble even getting the point across. The speaker may
seem confident that life is futile by the end of the poem, but this
instance of caesura captures the difficulty with which such
confidence is won. It depicts the speaker thinking and feeling in
real time.
Where Caesur
Caesuraa appears in the poem:
• Line 3: “,”
• Line 4: “,”
• Line 10: “,,” “,”
• Line 11: “,,” “,”
IMAGERY
The imagery in "Futility" largely concerns sunlight and the
effect sunlight has on life. The very first image in the poem is an
instruction to move the dead soldier into the sunlight, as
though it might help him even amidst death. The first stanza
also makes the sun out to be a calming, all-knowing figure, thus
overlapping with the poem's use of personification
personification.
The sun's touch is "gentle," "kind," and "old." The reader might
not be able to explicitly envision a "kind" and "old" sun, but the
words do help the reader visualize the sunlight as peaceful, yet
powerful. The second stanza's images initially continue this
trend, describing the sun's ability to "wake" seeds by bringing
them to life and to help human beings emerge from "clay."
Furthermore, by connecting images of the sun to images of the
Earth—such as "fields," "seeds," and "clay"—the poem
encourages the reader to see this soldier's death against the
background of a broader landscape.
The second half of the poem contrasts with the more positive
descriptions above. One of the poem's final images is of
"fatuous sunbeams" in the act of "toiling." This image asks the
reader to imagine sunlight as useless. This in turn relates to the
poem's image of the early earth as a "cold star," and its later
image of "earth's sleep." In these instances, the speaker
imagines what the Earth looked like before there was any
sunlight or life on it, when it was nothing more than a barren
rock. This implied image contrasts with the images of fields and
seeds from earlier in the poem.
All these images serve as a background for the poem's main
subject, the fallen soldier. The speaker, however, refuses to
depict this soldier in detail. The only images the speaker
provides are, "limbs [...] / Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to
stir." These images draw attention to the physical reality of the
fallen soldier's body, emphasizing his immobility as life ebbs
away. Yet in avoiding any further details about the soldier's face
or his wounds, the speaker preserves a measure of dignity and
anonymity for the soldier.
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Where Imagery appears in the poem:
• Lines 1-3
• Line 5
• Line 7
• Lines 8-9
• Line 10
• Line 11
• Lines 13-14
JUXTAPOSITION
"Futility" juxtaposes two large and abstract concepts: life and
death. The occasion of the poem is the death of a World War I
soldier, who lies helplessly in the snow in France. However, the
poem immediately introduces the "sun" as a key figure, which is
commonly associated with life. In the first stanza, even though
the death of the soldier seems certain, the line between life and
death is blurred. The speaker says "If anything might rouse him
now / The kind old sun will know," suggesting that the sun, as a
life-giving force, may know a way to awaken the soldier from
the slumber of death. Perhaps death is not, in fact, absolute.
In the second stanza, death makes the speaker question
whether or not life has a purpose. When the speaker asks "Was
it for this the clay grew tall?" the speaker suggests that life may
be futile, given that all living things eventually succumb to
death. Furthermore, if life is futile, wonders the speaker, then
why would it bother gracing earth's presence ("breaking earth's
sleep") at all? The speaker wonders if the world would have
been just as well off without life, suggesting that life is really
just another path to death, rather than something separate.In
this line of thought, the traditionally opposed forces of life and
death become less opposed and more connected.
Where Juxtaposition appears in the poem:
• Lines 1-14
PERSONIFICATION
"Futility" personifies the sun to emphasize its potential to
empower life. Describing the sun in human characteristics
allows readers to relate more closely to the positive effect the
sun has on the soldier. In the first stanza, it "touches" the dead
soldier and "whispers" as a way of waking him up. These
descriptions are more effective than saying that the sun
"shines," for example, since "touch" conveys a more intimate
sensory experience than the act of shining. The sun is even
described as having a personality, being "kind" and "old,"
associating it with both positivity and authority.
The speaker continues to personify the sun in the second
stanza, describing how it "wakes the seeds" and "the clays of a
cold star." In these intensely personified and metaphorical lines,
the "cold star" represents the Earth before there was any life
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on it. The "seeds" and the "clays" are each personified, their
acts of coming alive compared to humans waking up from sleep.
Here, "clays" alludes to myths in which the original humans
were created out of lifeless lumps of clay. Again, these
personifications highlight the sun's act of giving life. Now,
however, the sun's beams "toil," emphasizing the difficulty of
making things come alive.
In general, these moments of personification depict a world
brimming with life and death—not just for humans, but for all
things. Human readers don't know what it's like to be a plant
growing from seed, nor what it's like to take shape from clay, so
the poem draws readers into these experience using human
descriptions. The poem even describes the earth as "asleep" in
the poem's final line, further underlining the sun's power to
cause humans, plants, and even planets, to awaken with life. All
things come to life, and all things die.
Where P
Personification
ersonification appears in the poem:
• Lines 2-4
• Line 6
• Line 7
• Lines 8-9
• Line 12
• Line 13
• Line 14
ENJAMBMENT
Although most lines in "Futility" are end-stopped
end-stopped, several are
enjambed and carry distinct meaning via their breaks. The first
moment of enjambment occurs between lines 6 and 7: "If
anything might rouse him now / The kind old sun will know."
The drop-off after "now" creates a pause that adds weight to
the question of whether something could indeed revive the
dead soldier. It then slips into a reassuring tone by immediately
following that question with the statement "The kind old sun
will know."
The enjambment between lines 10 and 11 has a different
effect. Here, the speaker takes time to describe the complexity
of the soldier's physical characteristics, including sides that are
"full-nerved" and limbs that are "dear-achieved," or attained via
hard work on the part of creation. By employing enjambment,
the speaker further emphasizes how much time the poem
devotes to describing these qualities. Through this lengthy,
halting description, the speaker conveys how death comes to
dominate every detail of the body.
The final moment of enjambment occurs between the final two
lines. The break after "toil" adds weight to the question of
"what made fatuous sunbeams toil." The momentary silence
that follows this line break suggests that there may have been
no reason for sunbeams to awaken the earth. Additionally, the
final line of the poem even mentions an explicit "break" in
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reference to the earth's "break" in sleep. Thus, the poem's
enjambed line break underlines this metaphorical "break" in the
earth's slumber. All in all, the poem suggests that this act of
waking is futile; it's merely an act of "toil," given that all life on
earth will eventually die.
Where Enjambment appears in the poem:
• Lines 6-7: “now / The”
• Lines 10-11: “sides / Full-nerved”
• Lines 13-14: “toil / To ”
METAPHOR
"Futility" uses several metaphors to contemplate creation and
the place of life on earth. In the poem's beginning, the speaker
remains relatively focused on the dead soldier's circumstances,
describing the way the sun "awoke him" each morning
(comparing sunlight to "touch" and "whisper[s]"). But as the
poem progress, the soldier's death inspires the speaker to
contemplate life as a whole, thinking back to the purpose of
creation.
In the second stanza, the speaker compares the sprouting of
seeds to the act of waking up. Going even further, the speaker
then goes on to reference how the lifeless earth first
"woke"—that is, first produced life. Here, the speaker compares
earth to a "cold star." Although the earth was never really a star
(since stars are not the same as planets), the poem seems to
refer to a time when the Earth was cold and lifeless, before the
sun shone on it. The choice to use the phrase "cold star" and not
"Earth" suggests that "Earth" was never really the "Earth" until
it became warm enough to produce life. "Cold star," being an
unfamiliar phrase, helps clarify that the poem is talking about a
time so long ago that the Earth itself would have looked
unfamiliar.
In the poem's final lines, the suggestion that "earth's sleep" was
broken by "sunbeams" represents a moment of creation. The
metaphor of earth being "asleep" (i.e. not having any life) falls in
line with the speaker's frequent descriptions of "waking" as the
act of coming alive. This metaphor demonstrates the extent to
which the speaker's thoughts have broadened from the body of
the dead soldier to include creation at large.
Where Metaphor appears in the poem:
• Line 2: “Gently its touch awoke him once,”
• Line 3: “At home, whispering of fields half-sown.”
• Line 4: “Always it woke him”
• Line 8: “Think how it wakes the seeds—”
• Line 9: “Woke once the clays of a cold star.”
• Lines 13-14: “—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil / To
break earth's sleep at all?”
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ALLUSION
The poem's references to "clay" are allusions to a story in
creation myths around the world that human beings originally
came from clay. The mythologies of Ancient Egypt, Babylon, the
Inca, Ancient Greece, China, Hinduism, Christianity, and many
others all reference the idea that humans were formed from
earth. This allusion, which repeats explicitly in lines 9 and 12,
helps the speaker describe the moment of creation, when
sunlight first "woke" seeds and "woke once the clays of a cold
star" (i.e. brought Earth to life).
The speaker describes creation because he is in fact calling the
act of creation into question. For the speaker, creation seems
like a futile act in the face of death. The speaker's rhetorical
question
question, "Was it for this the clay grew tall?" is another way of
asking "Did humans originally come from clay just to be
subjected to death?" The idea that death extinguishes all
reason for life may have some root in the poet's own
experiences. After all, as a British soldier, Wilfred Owen was
surrounded by death on a regular basis throughout World War
I. For the speaker of this poem, who has seen countless soldiers
die, this particular dead soldier would have just been one of
many people killed and returned to the earth.
Where Allusion appears in the poem:
• Line 9: “Woke once the clays of a cold star.”
• Line 12: “Was it for this the clay grew tall?”
VOCABULARY
Half-sown (Line 3) - The act of sowing is that of planting seeds
in a field. A field that is half-sown is therefore only half-filled
with seeds.
Rouse (Line 6) - Rouse means to stir or wake up.
Seeds (Line 8) - Seeds refers to plants that grow in response to
sunlight, as if waking up.
Clay (Line 9, Line 12) - Clay refers to the dirt that human beings
originally came from according to creation stories from around
the world, including the Bible's.
Full-nerved (Line 11) - Full-nerved, or "full of nerves," is a
description that refers to the system of nerves in the human
body. They become "too hard to stir," or unable to function,
after death.
Fatuous (Line 13) - Fatuous means pointless or unnecessary.
Toil (Line 13) - Toil means to work very hard, often without
pause.
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status as commands. They force the reader to pay attention to
FORM, METER, & RHYME their orders: to "move" the dead soldier and to "think."

FORM Sometimes Owen also disrupts the metrical flow of each line
via caesur
caesuras
as. For instance, in line 11 the stresses bunch up as
The poem's form resembles that of a sonnet
sonnet, given that it is commas interrupt the line, so that the first two feet can be read
fourteen lines, although its rhyme scheme and structure are as spondees:
slightly different.
One structure of the sonnet that the poem does clearly borrow, Full
ull-nerv
nerved
ed, | still warm
warm, | too hard | to stir
however, is that of the volta, which is the "turn" a sonnet takes
as it transitions from one subject or tone to another around its This bunching up mimics the image it describes: an immobile
halfway point. In "Futility," there is a clear volta between the body packed with nerves, blood, and heat. In general, the poem
first and second stanzas (in a traditional sonnet, this volta uses these disruptions of meter to push against the tradition
would instead occur at line 9). In the first stanza, the speaker it's borrowing from. It wants the reader to see how it distances
exudes a calm and positive tone while describing the "gentle" itself from past depictions of war.
touches of sunlight on the dead soldier, as well as nurturing the A more uniform pattern, however, exists in the syllable count of
hope that the "kind old sun" will know a way to stave off death. each stanza. Each line in the first stanza also contains the same
In the second stanza, the poem's tone shifts to one of number of syllables as its counterpart in the second stanza,
discouragement and perplexity at the possibility that life is with the exception of one line pair (lines 4 and 11, which are
actually "futile." only one syllable off).
It should be noted that, historically, sonnets are associated with This metrical mirroring suggests an intriguing relationship
love. "Futility" also deals with love, albeit in a new manner. The between the two stanzas—that they act as thematic mirrors of
poem depicts love for the speaker's fallen comrade, as well as one other. Each stanza concerns itself with the sun's power to
love for life itself, despite its futility. In this way, the poem both create life, but the first has an optimistic view while the second
reference poetics traditions and reinvents them for its own has a pessimistic view.
purposes.
RHYME SCHEME
METER
"Futility" contains many par
pararh
arhymes
ymes and more general slant
"Futility" has a subtle meter. Each stanza's first and last lines rh
rhymes
ymes. This makes its rh
rhyme
yme scheme slightly difficult to
follow a loose iambic trimeter
trimeter, while all other lines between perceive. However, despite this subtlety, the poem's rhyme
them follow an iambic tetr
tetrameter
ameter. scheme can be stated as follows:
Take line 7, for example, which shows iambic trimeter: ABABCCC DEDEFFF

The kind | old sun | will know

know. Almost all the poem's end rhymes are slant rhymes. In contrast
to perfect rh
rhymes
ymes, these slant rhymes suggest a feeling of
And now look at line 12, which shows iambic tetrameter: imperfection and uncertainty. They create a kind of out-of-
tune, dissonant music, which mimics the distressing emotions
of the battlefield.
Was it | for this | the cla
clayy | grew tall
tall?
There are only two moments of perfect rhyme in the poem,
These are very traditional meters for English poetry. In using which occur in lines 5 and 7 ("snow" and "know"), and lines 12
them, the poem might be pushing the reader to see it as and 14 ("tall" and "all"). Both these perfect rhymes occur in the
engaging with poetry of the past. same spots in each stanza: namely, on the first and third C
rhymes in the first stanza, and the first and third F rhymes in
However, the poem doesn't always follow these meters exactly.
the second. Furthermore, each of these sets of perfect rhyme
For instance, each stanza begins with a trochee instead of an
contains a slant rhyme between them ("now" and "toil,"
iamb. In fact, the first stanza starts off with two trochees:
respectively). It's as if the poem is suggesting that there's
always a kernel of uncertainty wedged in moments of
Mo
Movve him | in
into | the sun
sun—
certainty—whether that be certainty in the "kind old sun," or
certainty in the futility of life.
And the second starts off with one:
In other words, the poem's rhyme scheme conveys how the
Think how | it wak
wakes
es | the seeds
seeds— poem stays in conflict with itself. Its combination of slant and
perfect rhymes depicts the uncertainty of soldiers' emotional
By beginning on stressed syllables, these lines emphasize their lives, showing how they are unable to fully embrace either hope

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on one hand, or cynicism on the other.
SPEAKER
Although the speaker of a poem is a separate entity from the
author, each figure is inextricably linked in "Futility," given its
wartime. Wilfred Owen was a soldier during World War I, and
the speaker in "Futility" is also a soldier. During his life as a
soldier, Owen likely experienced events very similar to those
the poem describes. The poem's themes of life, death, and
futility are themes that preoccupied Owen throughout his life
as a poet-soldier. It's possible, then, to think of "Futility" as
representing a distinct moment in the thoughts and feelings of
the real-life person Wilfred Owen. However, it's more precise
to refer to a specific speaker that Owen constructs in this poem,
a speaker who in turn observes a scene that may or may not
have happened.
This speaker witnesses the death of a comrade. Initially, the
speaker seems to possess a reverence for life, as exhibited in
his or her descriptions of a "kind old sun." However, the speaker
then turns to questioning life's entire purpose, suggesting that
life is futile. With this duality, the poem seems to suggest that a
soldier can hold both perspectives throughout the highs and
lows of war, both savoring life and questioning its meaning.
SETTING
The setting of "Futility" is a battlefield in France, presumably
during World War I (which was also the setting of Wilfred
Owen's own experience as a soldier). There is snow on the
ground and plenty of sunlight, suggesting that it's winter and
that the sky is bright and blue. The weather is cold, as
evidenced by the snow, but also contains tinges of warmth
thanks to the sun. Given that the first line is an instruction
spoken to someone else ("Move him into the sun"), the speaker
is likely not alone, but rather in the company of other soldiers.
The poem also references other settings that help inform its
themes. In the first stanza
stanza, the speaker imagines the pleasant
farm the dead soldier grew up on. In the second stanza, the
speaker imagines a more ambitious setting: the Earth at the
moment that life first appears. The poem metaphorically
describes the early Earth as a "cold star," evoking a barren and
silvery world, devoid of life. As the sun shines on this world, the
"clay," or dirt, begins to wake up and grow (an allusion to
creation myths from around the world), becoming all the living
things on Earth. These imagined settings help put the war
against a background of immense life and growth.
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CONTEXT
LITERARY CONTEXT
Both "Futility" and its author, Wilfred Owen, are fixtures of the
larger literary genre of World War I poetry. World War I was
characterized by a distinct form of brutality and loss, thanks to
a new wave of combat technology in the early 20th century and
to the harsh fighting conditions of trench warfare. The resulting
poetry is just as distinct, and it depicted subjects like
nationhood, trauma, nature, and the human body in ways that
literature hadn't done before. In fact, World War I can be seen
as inaugurating the period of literary Modernism
Modernism, in which
writers rejected the ideals of past generations and searched for
new forms of expression.
Owen's other poems, for instance, tend to be far more graphic
than "Futility," detailing the physical toll of fighting in European
trenches. In general, his poems question old ideals such as
patriotism or glory, instead focusing on the gritty details of war
that poetry from the past tended to ignore.
It's important to note that World War I poets included soldiers
as well as civilians, who had an altogether different but no less
profound experience of the war. Some other poets of World
War I include Thomas Hardy
Hardy, Rupert Brook
Brookee, Katharine T
Tynan
ynan,
Alice Corbin Henderson
Henderson, and Siegfried Sassoon
Sassoon, each of whom
inspired later poets to respond to the wars of their own time.
For instance, Yusef Komunyakaa writes about a physical
memorial in his poem, "Facing
Facing It
It," to confront the relationship
between the Vietnam War and memory. This physical imagery
of this poem can be compared with the imagery in Owen's
work.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The historical context of Owen's "Futility" is World War I.
Millions of people died in the war, so it follows that much of the
poetry written in response concerns death. World War I
divided Europe into two major factions: the Allied powers,
which included Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and the
United States, and the Central Powers, which included
Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria.
Almost an entire continent was at war.
The vast majority of the war was fought on land and
prominently featured a style of warfare known as "trench
warfare," in which soldiers dug trenches in fields, launching
projectiles and otherwise attacking opposing trenches. The
dangerous and unsanitary conditions of the trenches,
combined with the soldiers' weapons of choice (which ranged
from grenades, to bayonets, to poisonous gas), led to a degree
of brutality and slaughter that is almost beyond description.
Furthermore, these conditions were totally new. European
nations that had previously valorized war were shocked, and
people had to reevaluate how they related to the ideals of the
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past, such as patriotism. • The PPoetry
oetry of W
World
orld W
War
ar I — This article by the Poetry
Foundation lists many of the great poems written about
(and mostly during) World War I.
MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES (https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70139/the-
.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70139/the-
poetry-of-world-war-i)
EXTERNAL RESOURCES
LITCHARTS ON OTHER WILFRED OWEN POEMS
• "F
"Futility"
utility" Reading (Audio
(Audio)) — The English actor Alex
Jennings reads "Futility" aloud. • Anthem for Doomed YYouth
outh
(https:/
(https://www
/www..youtube.com/watch?v=CM_OK2VFlE8) • Dulce et Decorum Est
• Exposure
• Wilfred Owen
Owen's's "Insensibility" — Although it focuses more • Str
Strange
ange Meeting
on his other poem, "Insensibility," this article by the Poetry
Foundation explicates Owen's larger poetic perspective on
war. (https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70211/
.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70211/ HOW T
TO
O CITE
wilfred-owen-insensibility)
• The Wilfred Owen Association — The Wilfred Owen MLA
Association is a British organization dedicated to Kneisley, John. "Futility." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 8 May 2019.
promoting Owen's life and poetic work. Web. 22 Apr 2020.
(http:/
(http://www
/www..wilfredowen.org.uk/)
CHICAGO MANUAL
• Wilfred Owen
Owen's's Biogr
Biograph
aphyy and W
Works
orks — The Academy of
American Poets website, apart from being a premier Kneisley, John. "Futility." LitCharts LLC, May 8, 2019. Retrieved
resource for all things poetry, has information about April 22, 2020. https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/wilfred-owen/
Owen's biography and notable works. (https:/
(https:///poets.org/ futility.
poet/wilfred-owen)

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